FOOL CRITICS. It would seem that there are some things in the world beyond cavil or question. A fact is a fact, and no end of discussion will alter the truth to which it certifies. Amaug other facts that stand impregnable to assault the fact that a stick has two ends, that all sides of a sphere are equal, that 2x2 equals 4, that water is wet, that the world is round, all alike belong to this class. The unanimous opinion of intelligent humanity for several centuries has certified to the fact of the transcendent genius of William Shakespeare, yet every now and again some notoriety-seeker waves his great ears and posts notice of his objection to a wondering world. Shaw and Bierce are the latest idiots to butt out their brains against the adamant of Shakespeare’s genius. We beg in this respect to tender our compliments to the Norfolk Landmark for its defense of that divine love-tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. We have heretofore had great respect for the ability of Mr. Ambrose Bierce, but w...

6 FREEDOM! Freedom! twin sister of Virtue, thou brightest of all the spirits descended In the train of Religion from the throne of God; thou that leadest up man again to the glories of his early being; angel, from the circle of whose presence happiness spreads like the sunlight over the darkness of the land! at the waving of whose sceptre, knowledge, and peace, and fortitude, and wisdom, stoop upon the wing * * * when shall I see thy coming? When shall I hear thy summons upon the mountains of my country, and rejoice in the regeneration and glory of the sons 1 of Judah? I have traversed nations; and as I set my foot upon their boundary, I have said, Freedom is not here! * * • In the midst of altars fuming to liberty, of harangues glowing with the most pompous protestations of scorn for servitude, of crowds inflated with the presumption that they disdained a master, the eye was insulted with the perpetual chain. * * * I saw the still more infallible signs, the down-cast visage, the fo...

AN APPEAL TO THE POTENCY OF THE PRESS, Or a Plea That Was Misplaced. Thou that can’s! by intimation Make or mar a reputation, Listen to my lamentation! ' Kindly give me some attention And in brief I will make mention Why I crave your condescension. I am set in simple ways. Shunning blame and seeking praise, And I’ve got the “star struck’’ craze. have writ a Book of Verses Of the lore my Muse rehearses, And I dream of open purses. Likewise dream of fame and glory, Hope to live in song and story. After you and I are hoary. ’s aid I seek, For I’m getting faint and weak. Need a friend my praise to speak. Would like indeed to well impress you, Think that I can Interest you, Perhaps with poetic charm invest you. Ere my steam turns into vapor, I Judge ’twould be the proper caper, To get some mention in your paper. I have passer the outer guards Of the Domain of the Bards; Lack of aid alone retards. Spare me but some little time. Help me boom my “Book of Rhyme”: Hold the ladder I would clim...

Vol. I. No. 36. THE FENTRESS FRANCHISE. Out of the interminable argument and advertising that has recently filled the columns of every paper in this city, three things stand out very clear. Divested of trimmings and boiled to the bone the sum and substance of it all would be: Ist. R. B. Fentress wants a franchise to compete in the local light and power field, and to give the public bona fide and permanent service at cheaper rates. 2nd. The Norfolk Railway and Light Co., for reasons too obvious to need explanation, wants to keep him out; and has used, and will continue to use every argument and every effort against his enterprise. 3rd. The general public, who hold the bag and pay the bills, want relief from conditions that have been clearly shown to be burdensome, and seeing that this relief in the proposition of R. B. Fentress are almost unanimous in favor of the city councils granting him all he desires. 4th. That the city and the general public have nothing to lose and everything ...

2 ness. The privilege of the ancient feudal system, the monopolies of the old barons and nobility, all pale* into insignificance compared with the privileges of the modern capitalistic baron with his immensely larger field of operation, and yet when the modern barons attempt to restrict certain industries and businesses unto themselves, we are confronted with American citizens arguing why they should be allowed to have their way. The barons of old surrounded themselves with well fed and well paid armed hirelings who maintained their privileges with the boardsword and battle axe on the heads of the people. The modern baron, in the shape of monopolist, magnate, or capitalist, endows colleges for teaching his own doctrines, and pays legal talent to work insiduous measure through city and State and national councils for his own aggrandizement, and this accomplished we revert once more to the old order of things, the policeman, and the militia take the place of the hirelings of the feuda...

In tfte drama's Heaftn* By Phil Space. The Honorable and Ancient George Bernard Shaw, purveyor of smut as it applies to the drama, and whose “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” was vile, is keeping the cables sizzling in his denunciation of Americans whom he charges with being unappreciative, narrow-minded and prejudiced. Poor Shaw! ’Tis a pity that his thoughts cannot run along the pure path and that the best he can do is to attempt an exhibition of all that is base, degraded and vulgar. Shaw would have us sit through his three hours of theatrical stink, and when we say we can’t, WE CAN’T stomach it, he gets on his high horse and calls us “muts.” Such a play as “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” is suited to the demi-monde respectable persons would rather not witness such a production. The American people are slowly but surely learning that plays of the same stamp as Shaw’s are not conducive to good morals. As sure as water does not rise above its level, so sure hereafter will immoral plays be tabo...

4 Free-kcmce Subscriptions, Payable in Advance. ONE YEAR »1.75 SIX MONTHS »0 THREE MONTHS 50 PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY FOR SALE ALL OVER Address all communications to 422 E. flam Street THE NEW YORK JOURNAL AND PRIZE FIGHTING About the cheapest and poorest grade of journalism proffered hy any pretentious newspaper in the United States is that of the New York Journal, which tried in vain to change its name to the “American.” The “Journal” was from the beginning justly duhh.ed a “yellow” sheet hy its contemporaries, meaning thereby that the vulgar, the raucous, the cheap, the shoddy, and the clownish, constituted its exclusive stock in trade. There is no doubt of the fact that the “Journal” has retained its supremacy in all these lines. In fact, it has often admitted the charge, and on more than one occasion has seriously assumed to make the term “yellow” synonymous for progress and enlightenment. In this, of course, it has never succeeded, and the public disapproval of Wm. R. Hearst o...

babies instead of commanding men and sailors, and this unfair rag would have gloated over what it would have termed the “back-down” of the Englishman. That is the spirit of the abject coward, the hypocrite, and the mouth-fighter, but not of a man. This same spirit of fair play, whether it be in prize fighting or in the greater contests of intellect, is the twin-spirit of generosity and largely the father of all the virtues. Where its prostitution is attempted or accomplished, in whatsoever slight degree, the gates are open for all manner of abominations. This same “Journal,” now posing as an apostle of morality, and throwing up its dirty fingers in affected horror at the “brutality” of prize fighting, is the same sheet that during the Spanish-American war published on its front page the most obscene picture that ever appeared in the columns of a supposedly respectable paper, and sent it broadcast into thousands of respectable homes. This same picture made be seen today adorning the ...

6 THE SUNSET. The sun had just lighted his lurid torches, preparatory to his departure for the night, and was reflecting a scene of incomparable beauty and glory upon a gorgeous pageantry of constantly shifting clouds. —ROBERT BORIS STEVENSON. CTIKISTIAXITY ATilj-SUFFICIEXT. Christianity has its sublime declarations, its noble ethical principles, its historical and internal corroborations; it is a creed confessedly loftiest in thought, purest in principle, illumined with unique splendor of immortal hope, and round it murmur Aeolian airs of memory: yet how often it is bartered, an ancient birthright for a mess of pottage; dropped, Indeed —substance for shadow —to snatch at a creed that shuts out God and immortality, and shuts in life within the precarious precincts of the present —a creed of frigid negations, alike without dignity, delight, or expectation? Amid the advancing movements of present-day activity it betrays ®ur Xiteran? Symposium. [From compilation of George F. Viett. Rig...

A London penny weekly offered a guinea for the best doggerel submitted. The following are a few of the “Limericks,” as they are called, that appeared: The first one is credited to Rudyard Kipling. There was a small boy of Quebec, Who was bulled in snow to his neck. When asked, “Are you friz?” He replied, “Yes, I is; But we don’t call this cold in Quebec.” There was an old negress named Hannah, Who stepped on a piece of banana; With a slip and a slide More stars she espied Than are seen in the star-spangled banner. A tutor who tooted the llute, Tried to teach two young tutors to toot; Said the two to the tutor, “Is it harder to toot, or To tutor two tooters to toot?” There was an old man in Nantucket, Who kept all his cash in a bucket; But his daughter, named Nan, Ran away with a man, And as for the bucket —Nan tucket! She always addressed him as Mr., Until he took courage and Kr.; But now that they’re wed, Like a brute he has said, That he wishes to goodness he’d Mr. There was a you...

Vol. I. No. 37. The Wonderful Nerve of The Norfolk Railway &amp;amp; Light Co. The belated reformation of the Norfolk Railway and Light Co. and the promises it makes (under compulsion) to the public, places it very much in the attitude of the highway robber who advises his frequent victim not to purchase a revolver for future use, but rather to give him the price of the same upon the assurance of future immunity from attack. One thing should be kept steadily in mind by the public and those who represent that public in official life, and that is that every promised concession of the existing monopoly, as to light and power rates, six street car tickets for a quarter, etc., has been wrung from them, and not given voluntarily, and that all these so-called concessions constitute but a fair and just business relation with the public, and a return to a condition which formerly existed in the case of the street car service. The Norfolk Railway and Light Co. not only advances these late...

2 “paternalism in government,” and yet these same people have no hesitancy in asking for themselves the crown and climax of all paternalism—legislative perpetuation of their own monopoly. The proper answer to such a preposterous appeal should be the immediate granting of the Fentress franchise. This is what the people of Norfolk expect, and it is to be hoped that their representatives will not disappoint them. ht the ftectlttn By Phil. Space. Norfolk’s Ice Palace, the first and finest in the south, which is situated on East Main street, opposite Chapel, is to be thrown open to the public in a few days, probably Monday night. The interior of the palace resembles a veritable fairyland, and is by far the handsomest place of its kind in this section of the country. Ice skating is a fascinating and exhilarating sport, and as there are hundreds of lovers of ice skating hereabouts, these will have ample opportunity to enjoy themselves to their hearts’ content. To describe the beauties of t...

are to be found mostly in the cities of the South. Norfolk is fairly burdened with them. In a hundred and one ways individual enterprise is hampered and opportunity denied. The latest instance, which happened quite recently, was one in which a worthy man with a large family of children was denied the privilege of making twenty-five dollars by the distribution of circulars which had been sent him by a Northern firm. These circulars advertised the medicine of the Lydia Pinkham Company, which has been sold and advertised before many of us were born. The medicine is said to be of the very best, as hundreds of women will testify, and the advertising matter was of that class which appeals to sick fema'es who might need relief. Under a Norfolk ordinance, permission had to be received from the chief of police to distribute these circulars. Mr. Boush decided that they were not fit, the circulars remained undistributed, and the working man lost twenty-five dollars, but of course the rental ag...

==l B J E marble decoration of the lower floor will always emphasize the solidity and large liberality of those who conceived and brought to completion what is justly entitled to rank among the finest business structures in the world. G. F. V. The finance committee of the council has recommended the paving of several streets occupied exclusively by negroes, yet streets in need of attention, where respectable white persons reside are given the go-by. And this in the sunny, sunny south! Dear Free-Lance: It looks as if we were to have a political party in this state to be known as the Methodist-Baptist Church Party. It appears that there is a large number of defunct politicians among the membership of these two denominations, and there is also a number of their preachers that seem to aspire to political notoriety, rather than remain unostentatiously in charge of their respective charges preaching “on earth, peace, good will toward men.” At a recent meeting of Baptists in Charlottesvill...

6 TERROR. Like that which sometimes takes possession of the mind in dreams —when one feels one's self sleeping' alone, utterly divided from all call or hearing of friends, doors' open that should be shut, or unlocked that should be triply secured, the very walls gone, barriers swallowed up by unknown abysses, nothing around one but frail curtains, and a .world of Illimitable night, whisperings at a distance, correspondence going on between darkness and darkness, like one deep calling to another, and the dreamer’s' own heart the center from which the network of this unimaginable chaos radiates, by means of which the blank privations of silence and darkness become powers the most positive and awful. —DE QUINCBY MODESTY. Modesty is always the sign and safeguard of a mystery. It is explained by its contrary—profanation. Shyness or modesty is, in truth, the half-conscious sense of a secret of nature or of the soul too intimately individual to be given or surrendered. It is exchanged. To ...

THE SNARD (Being No. 4 of a series of Natural History Lessons.) The Snarcl and the Snide are close relatives, the only difference, perhaps, is that the Snide is less obtrusive than the Snard. Where the Snide is shallow the Snard is deep, where the Snide is cautious the Snard is brutally aggressive. There are some of both species in Norfolk. The Snard originated in the backwoods and moved to town upon reaching years of discretion. The Snard is in the main successful, for having come from nothing with nothing, any change with this animal is counted as success. What useful purpose this beast serves in the economy of nature no one has ever been able to find out. Like the bump on the log, he is always in the way, but firmly fixed. The Snard is a very useful animal to those who want to use him. Criminal lawyers invariably select the Snard to serve on the jury, for his perverted morality and maudlin sentiment can always be counted on to thwart the ends of justice. The Snard generally takes...